Convergence
by Raven Catz
Summary: He's always had a plan, and she was never intended to be a part of it.
1. Chapter 1

For all that they didn't want to admit it, news, especially gossip and rumors, spread quickly among the survivors of Oceanic flight 815. It always seemed that someone was constantly getting into something here in this place. Certainly, there seemed to be those whose hands were in just about everything, but I wasn't one of those. In fact, my fingers weren't really in any pies, at least not for the time being.

Everyone here seems a little preoccupied by everyone else's backgrounds, and I've certainly had plenty of time to think about my own, so I guess I could stand to share a little. My name is Tristan Gardner. I'm from Chicago. Oceanic flight 815 was supposed to take me to a connecting flight in L.A. Guess I missed my connection. If you had seen me on the plane, I was the one blithely gluing rhinestones onto a shoe. I was telling everyone that I was a competitive ballroom dancer, but that was before I knew I'd be stuck living with them for months. If I'd have known that, I probably would have told them the truth to begin with. I'm a burlesque dancer. I flew to Australia to perform in my very first international burlesque festival. My performance went really well, by the way. Too bad my costume is probably now scattered across the entire island. Every once in a while, I imagine someone (probably one of those Others) stumbling across my bejeweled panties dangling off some tree. Quite frankly, I'd like to be there when it happens. Well, maybe not if it's one of the Others.

Speaking of Others, that brings me back to the beginning. Gossip and rumors had been swirling around the margins of our little beach camp. Dr. Jack and all the cool kids were trying their best to keep it quiet, and I understood why. Only one of two things would happen if 40-odd people found out there was an Other trapped in the hatch. They'd either kill it, angry-mob style, or they'd dissolve into anarchy at the proposition that certain individuals were withholding information, presumably for the good of the group. Fortunately for me, I wasn't terribly invested in either of those outcomes. I knew enough to know that the Others were far from harmless, but my interest in this hushed headline had much more to do with curiosity and less with anger or revenge than most of my fellow survivors.

I had kept mostly to myself since the beginning, since I knew enough about myself to know that I process trauma and stress best alone. I wasn't as isolated and introverted as some, but while Kate and Sawyer and Jack did… Kate and Sawyer and Jack, I preferred to keep my own company. I might not even be here to tell you this story, if it weren't for the fact that Fate is a funny thing. Maybe the Island had a plan for me after all. As luck would have it, Claire and Charlie found themselves on the outs not long before my story began, and Charlie moved into a shelter barely within earshot of me. Assuming I was clever and curious (which I was), and stealthy (which I… probably was not, if we're honest), I could hear more than the strumming of his guitar at night. Sometimes, I got advance notice of the juicy tidbits of news that wouldn't filter down to the nobodies like myself for another few days.

It really began the day I found my shoe. You remember I mentioned I was rhinestoning a shoe on the plane. Well, in my desperation to get a death grip on that ever-so-useless seat-bottom-flotation-device they tout the merits of in every preflight announcement, I must have let go of the shoe at some point in our descent. To be honest, I was too busy flirting with death to remember. But I must have held onto that sucker for a good long time though, because I found it barely a half hour's trek into the jungle, just dangling seductively from a stalk of bamboo. It had glittered mockingly in the sunlight and I almost had a heart attack at first, convinced it was the glint in the eye of yet another inexplicable polar bear. In truth, I don't even know why I took it back to camp with me, it wasn't like I was ever going to find the other one, and even if I did, what was I gonna do with them, perform USO shows at the coconut cantina?

But I did take it with me, and that evening I slipped it out of my shelter and sat by the firelight, turning it over and over in my hands, letting the jet rhinestones flare and flicker in the setting sun. That's when I heard them. Voices. Charlie and Sayid, sitting barely on the other side of the sandy ridge that separated camp from the tide line. Their timbre mingled with the crashing of the waves and was half lost, but as I strained to hear, I heard the unmistakable words drop from Sayid's lips.

"There is a man down in the hatch…"

My ears perked, begging whatever wild force that governed this island to still the waves that obscured their conversation.

"…He was one of them. One of the Others."

I don't remember what else was said that evening, because I felt my whole self consumed with such intense curiosity. I knew the gravity of the decision to imprison someone. I knew that such a decision could shatter the fragile utopian society that we were still clinging to the illusion that we were creating. But, more than anything, I was terribly curious about what this man, this Other looked like.

The only Other I had ever seen was Ethan, but, of course, I hadn't known about his Otherness when I had seen him, spoken to him. Even now, barely weeks after he had been outed and shot, I was hard pressed to remember what he looked like. Hard pressed to remember if there was anything about him that I might have sensed, half-sensed, that might have marked his Otherness in hindsight. I wanted to see this mysterious man to assure myself that there really was a difference between their savagery and our own.

I didn't sleep that night, but sat up long into the darkness, watching the stars swirl in their most unusual trails across the night sky, formulating my desire to see this captive of ours, to judge his Otherness for myself.

By the time the bright shafts of island sunlight pierced the shabby walls of my shelter, I had realized the only thing for me to do was to find a way to get into the hatch. Now, the first thing you should probably know about the hatch is that it's about as easy to get into as Studio 54. Dr. Jack and everybody else who sat at the cool kids' table had all been there, and I knew of a select few besides who had successfully petitioned for a shower or clean laundry. However even those requests were being swept aside now, rotation schedules changed, quietly reducing the number of personnel down to the bare minimum. Still, I had to try.

I remembered someone mentioning coffee. It had been just long enough that I had resigned myself to the reality that I would never again taste the sweet, sweet drug that was a Starbucks mocha, but the possibility of a real cup of strong coffee with fresh cream seemed like the perfect excuse to make the trip to the Hatch. At first, I considered finding an escort, but thought better of it. Dr. Jack and John Locke had been increasingly at odds, especially when it came to the hatch and it's… contents, so I elected to obtain roundabout permission some other way.

"Hey Hurley." I sidled up to the camp kitchen, where Hurley was quietly slicing mangoes.

"Oh. Hey."

"So… You got a bunch of these supplies from the Hatch, right?" …Way to be subtle, Tris.

"…Yeah." Great. He was on to me.

"Well…" I wheedled, "I hear there might be some coffee down there. Any idea who I might have to bribe for a cup?"

"I dunno, dude." Hurley said, suddenly uncertain. "Mango?"

"No thanks"

"Listen, uh… there's coffee down there, but I don't really think you should go over there right now. The, uh, washing machine is broken. There's… uh… water everywhere."

"Hurley, do you really think a little water is going to keep me away from the siren song of caffeine?"

"If you say so, dude."

"Great. Thanks!" And with that, I took off.

"Uh… Wait!" I heard him call, distantly. I was already gone.

I was distantly familiar with the path to the Hatch, but I had never traveled it before. It was longer than I had anticipated, winding and contemplative through the saw grass and underbrush. As the rustling of the trees lulled my brain and dulled my urgency, it occurred to me that this whole idea was a fool's errand. Wasn't the whole point that the Others looked just like us? Could hide among us and pass as us at any time? What did I need to see one for? Yet, something urged me forward. This same curiosity that tugged at me the night before, which whipped my brain into a frenzy of dreams, this singular, obsessive thought invaded me. It was as if the hand of Fate itself was pushing me down the jungle path. I had to put a face on the faceless enemy. I was tired of fearing the rustling of leaves and the whispers that might lie behind them. If I was going to continue to be as apprehensive as I was told I should be, I wanted to know why. But the late-morning sun soon banished my distant but sudden fear of whispers in the jungle and I was mercifully spared running into either Dr. Jack or John Locke on the journey, narrowly avoiding awkwardly explaining why my taste for coffee had suddenly overpowered my disdain for human companionship.

I was greeted at first by what appeared to be a cold, concrete bunker. Distantly, however, the merry sound of bubbly, 70's pop music beckoned me onward into a warmly lit space. As predicted, a pot of coffee was brewing on the countertop, cream and sugar laid out enticingly nearby. The room was empty.

The golden light drew me back to Chicago, where I had spent innumerable afternoons huddled in some coffeeshop or other, wood-paneled or exposed-bricked and teeming with tiny tables or dated armchairs. I helped myself to a cup and withdrew to the tiny booth at one end of the room. The artificial sunlight was unexpectedly warm and inviting and I found myself basking in its glow. In my haste to sink into caffeinated bliss, I almost entirely forgot the real purpose of my visit.

In fact, I might not have accomplished my actual goal at all, so lost was I in my illusion of home, were it not for the fact that the record on its turntable fell suddenly silent, the return arm swinging dutifully away and settling back into its cradle. The silence jolted me back to the present and I rose, curious once more. I approached the turntable, flipping the record and carefully resetting the needle.

As the music once again blared to life, the door immediately to my right swung open with a bang, and I found myself face to face with John Locke, eyes blazing.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, after a beat. He had drawn himself up to his full height, towering over me.

"I, uh… I heard there was coffee…" I sputtered, indicating the cup in my hands. It wasn't until that moment that I realized I had walked right into my opportunity. Chancing a glance away from Locke's imposing expression, I saw a glimpse of movement. My eyes darted into the half-light beyond him, and my gaze was greeted by the intent stare of our unexpected houseguest.

He was far slighter than I had expected, small and thin and dirty, his face a patchwork of bruises and his hands bound to the floor. But his eyes were unsettlingly blue, and they pierced into me such that, even if I had wanted to look away, I couldn't have. It was like being struck by lightning. They were filled with confusion and, as time moved infinitely slowly, with each inch the door closed, an ever-increasing hunger. He broke my gaze briefly, glancing up at Locke, then returned to my face. Transfixed, I soon found myself looking at nothing but concrete, the only relief from the spell of those strange, insatiable blue eyes.

"I think maybe you should go back to the beach." Locke's tone was firm.

"So… I'm guessing the café is officially closed." I murmured. Locke simply shifted, nodding imperceptibly toward the door.

* * *

John Locke stared after her for a long time, emotions mingling between rage, terror, confusion. This had not been part of the plan.

The man they called Henry Gale sat silently for a long moment after Locke had shut the door in his face. He was still staring at her, even though all he could see now was dimly-lit steel. He was flipping through his mental rolodex, flashing through names, passport photos, his nimble mind searching the manifest of Oceanic 815.

Gardner.

He heard the distant sound of the needle scratching off of a record suddenly, followed at length by a new song, now blaringly loud.

"John?" He called, after a beat. He was greeted only with silence. After a moment, he allowed his shoulders to slump awkwardly.


	2. Chapter 2

I found myself stumbling blindly through the jungle, disoriented and confused. Charlie, Sayid, Jack, they had all claimed the Others possessed the strength and cunning of ten men. So what was this broken rag-doll of a man in our Hatch?

And yet, his eyes were not pleading, but immeasurably hungry and calculating as they searched my face. Contrary to my purpose, this encounter had answered nothing, but only intensified my curiosity. Who was he? And _what_ was he? As weak as his battered and half-starved body, or as sharp and cunning as his gaze? I kept looking back on his face in my memory, split lip, black eye, clothes ragged and torn, and I found that I felt pity more than anything. What were we keeping him in a cage for, anyway? From the whispers on the beach, no one was even certain he was an Other, and not just some hapless survivor like ourselves.

I began again to think about Ethan. The only true Other I had ever met. Had he not been helpful, if not aloof those first days? I remembered him hauling firewood. I remembered him slicing mangoes. And wasn't it true that, when Charlie shot him, it was in the middle of the jungle, witnessed only by Jack and Sayid? I grew a little cold at the thoughts I was entertaining. These people were my people. They were only trying to protect us… right?

As the days went by, I found myself returning to my previous state, existing as the silent cog in the wheel of our camp. Each day, I considered trying to go back to the hatch, trying to get another look, or at least to snoop outside long enough to hear his name. If they knew his name. If they had even bothered to learn it. And then something happened. Michael returned.

I was far from the first to find out, predictably. In fact, the only reason I found out at all was because, about a week after I first visited the hatch, I finally gave in to my temptation to try again. I came this time, armed with the laundry of half the camp, hoping that, with the addition of Ana Lucia into hatch rotation, I could finally convince someone that an all-night laundry bender was someone's idea of a good time.

Unfortunately for me, the Island decided that it just wasn't laundry day.

I found myself on the path to the Hatch not long before dusk. Jack and Kate were out doing… whatever it was that Jack and Kate did. Locke was off duty on the beach. Hurley was even more cheerful than usual. I thought I had it in the bag. The sun had begun to set as I found myself deeper in the jungle, and I suddenly remembered why it was unwise to leave camp in the evenings.

If anyone else would have known where I was headed that night, I would have sworn up and down that I hadn't heard the gunshots. And that much was true. I was pausing to adjust my pack of laundry when I heard it, almost quiet enough to miss, the sound of rapid footfalls, deftly in the brush.

I found myself suddenly awash in a pool of torchlight. As my eyes began to adjust, I saw that it was him. As he registered my face, his expression became overwhelmed by what I could only describe as terrible disappointment

"It would be you, wouldn't it?" He asked quietly.

"What did you do?" It tumbled out of me, absurdly.

"Nothing." He stated simply.

* * *

She really had been the last thing he expected to see on this god-forsaken path. Gardner. He couldn't remember anything else about her, save the fact that her passport photo had very much resembled a mugshot, she had looked so surly. In the dancing firelight, as at the Swan, she didn't look surly at all, just delicate. And right now, she was trying very hard to stop staring stupidly at him. As she straightened, he barely registered a hint of movement at her collarbones. She was wearing a necklace. It was an ankh. He silently cursed Jacob for this.

"It would be you, wouldn't it?" He asked quietly.

"What did you do?" She was practically shouting.

"Nothing." He stated, emotionlessly. "Walk with me. Quietly."

* * *

"What did you do?" I asked again, this time with purpose. Who was on duty tonight? I moved to drop the laundry and leave him on the path, but he shot out a hand and stopped me.

"Nothing." He repeated. "But if you go back there, there is a very good chance that Michael will kill you."

"Michael?" I asked, perhaps too shrilly. His eyes flashed in the firelight.

"Yes. Michael. It's really quite astonishing, what someone will do for their child." At these words, he began to move off into the jungle. I hesitated, then stumbled off after him.

"Take me with you." I hissed. It burst out of me, unbidden.

"No." He didn't look back, but instead continued to pick through the underbrush, torch flickering ahead of him.

"Take me with you. Please."

"Tell me, I'm curious, why on earth would you want to just take off into the jungle with a strange man you've just met?" He asked, tonelessly, picking up speed.

I caught him by the crook of his elbow, swinging the both of us to a sudden halt once again in the darkness.

"You may know, in your heart, that they had every reason to beat you and lock you in a cage." I murmured, meeting his eyes again for the first time. "But they don't. So take me with you."

* * *

He rounded on her. If she was going to be in the habit of just asking the same questions until she reached a satisfactory answer, she was going to be far too much trouble to accompany him further. He scrutinized her face. She stood her ground, resolutely.

"I'm sorry to tell you that you've misplaced your implicit trust. That belongs with Dr. Shepherd, not me."

"Jack and Locke have no justification for their actions, aside from the excuse that you are the Other, and they fear the unknown. I'm tired of fearing the unknown. I want to know it instead."

They stood in silence for a long moment, one expectantly waiting for an answer, the other perking his ears for the sound of encroaching footfalls.

"Take me with you." Nine-year-old Ben was pleading with Richard Alpert. What had his answer been? He had closed his eyes, composed himself, and his eyes had filled with the same vague disappointment that Ben was busy twisting his expression into now.

"Maybe that can happen." He finally said, demeanor softening deliberately, and she straightened with surprise. "Maybe. But if that's what you really want… If that's what you want, I want you to think about that. You're going to have to be very, very patient."

He turned away again, and conducted her through the jungle in silence for some time. Eventually, she stopped once more, shifting the pack of laundry and clearing her throat. He bristled and came to a halt.

"Yes?" He murmured testily.

"If I'm not coming with you, just where do you think you're leading me?" She asked, half proud of her cleverness, half dreading the answer to her query.

"I am sorry, Tristan. I am." He responded quietly and, before she could even process what he had said, he had pulled Michael's gun from the waistband of his pants and slammed the butt of it into her left temple.


	3. Chapter 3

Unconsciousness must have passed straight into sleep for me, because I didn't awaken again until the morning sun was peering weakly over the horizon. I was momentarily terrified at the thought that this stranger had left me for dead in the middle of the wild jungle, but as I sat up, I realized that I was not in the thicket of trees that the dark of night had led me to believe I was, but rather, I found myself barely a stone's throw from Sun's garden. He had led me back to camp.

He had led me back to a camp he had never been to via a path I had never seen before. Who _were_ these people? My own insatiable curiosity urged me to search for the path he had abandoned me by, but the truth was, I couldn't have tracked a rhinoceros out of a paper bag, so I soon gave up and crept quietly back to my own shelter.

I foolishly somehow expected to arrive to a peacefully sleeping camp, but what I arrived to instead was madness. I seemed to come crashing out of the brush at roughly the same moment Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley were heading in. I lunged into the shadow of a tree stump, silently watching them pass, expressions a twisted collection of grief and confusion. I remembered what Henry Gale had said to me the night before, eyes flashing in the firelight. What had Michael done?

Fortunately for me, the restless milling of the other survivors on the beach allowed me to slip unnoticed back to my own shelter, and it wasn't long before I was emerging yet again, sidling over to Charlie's camp.

"Charlie?" I asked, attempting a pathetic pastiche of half-asleep grog. "What happened?"

"Tristan." He replied curtly.

"Where is everybody going?"

"Didn't you hear?"

"About Michael?" I asked.

"Michael? About Ana Lucia. And Libby. What that monster did to them."

"Monster? Michael?"

"Henry, Tris. He killed them, and he's gone. Escaped."

I felt the blood draining from my face. It couldn't possibly be. Though it was, admittedly, the far more plausible version of the truth, I couldn't wrap my brain around it. I had just seen him. If he had killed them all, what would have stopped him from shooting me in the jungle and leaving it at that?

"Well, then, what happened with Michael?"

"What is it with you and Michael? He's going to be fine." Charlie rose, agitated. "Listen, it's great that you've decided to join the human race for a change, but today really isn't the day."

I was left with my head spinning, and a vicious desire to head off again into the jungle to search for Henry. What was it that he had said? Patience.

Patience wasn't one of my strongest characteristics, if we were being honest. It took a considerable amount of mental gymnastics for me to remind myself that, as Henry truly was an Other, he was not only long gone, but he would have left no trace by which even Locke might have tracked him, let alone me. Begrudgingly, I elected to spend the balance of the morning allowing the waves to wash over my feet instead.

That day seemed like the longest day we had spent on the Island. I waited in tense silence for anyone to return with news. I was equally afraid that evidence of my foolish stumbling would be found in the underbrush, and betray our erstwhile houseguest. Why was I still so willing to believe him? The truth seemed clear to everyone but me. I just couldn't get it out of my head. We had stood, feet from each other, he was armed, he was in control of my life for our entire encounter, and all he had done was take me on a midnight dime tour of the jungle and absolve me of scrutiny, had I been discovered to have been walking with him.

At last, I became aware of the somber procession winding across the beach, and I rose, reluctantly, to join the throng. It was, perhaps, the first time I would experience what I came to know as survivor's guilt, though my heart was still unable to let go of my own private version of the truth. I drifted, as I usually did, around the margins of the group. I didn't belong in the stoic nucleus of Dr. Jack and the cool kids, but I was still largely socially invisible enough to find my way within earshot of them.

I couldn't explain it, but Hurley's acquiescence to Michael at the funeral galvanized something inside my mind. I was livid at the thought that Hurley, sweet, trusting Hurley could be so taken with Dr. Jack and his confidence that he wouldn't even give Michael's proposition a second thought. That Jin and Sun would welcome him back with open arms. The curiosity that had led me to seek out Henry in the first place, to learn his name, to lay eyes on him in the shadows of the armory had turned to a fierce sort of determination. If there had been any doubt in my mind that he had told me the truth about Michael, I could have justified staying put, waiting for Dr. Jack to return with Walt, being proven wrong. I could have justified all those things, had Henry lied to me. But he hadn't lied, and I was the only one who could ever know that. I was the only member of our camp to know what Michael had done, and it infuriated me that Jack and the other survivors would take his word as truth simply because he was one of us, and not one of Them. Whatever it had been that urged me to beg Henry to take me into the jungle with him came roaring to the surface of my consciousness along with a strange kind of revulsion. I had to get off the beach. I had to get away from the dozens of people content to believe an idealist version of the truth.

A/N: This one's a shorty, but I had to cut it off somewhere.


	4. Chapter 4

I waited until Michael departed with Jack, Sawyer, Kate, and Hurley the next morning. Inwardly, I knew it was likely that I would just wander in the jungle until I died from exposure, or get spooked and come home, but if Henry and Ethan had suggested anything to me, it was that the Others were more than capable of quietly stalking the trees and meadows, completely unknown to us. I was sure there would be more of them out in the jungle to find me.

Maybe it was stupid logic, but I elected to begin my journey at the point where my first adventure had come to an abrupt (and painful) end. If I could get even the slightest bearing on the direction Henry had traveled from, maybe I could find his people on my own, though I knew it was far more likely that I would pick up my own trail and follow it straight back to the Hatch.

* * *

Tristan picked her way carefully around Sun's vegetables, through the swaying verge to the spot at which she, 24 hours earlier, had sat bolt upright in the morning haze, left temple still throbbing. As she had suspected, it wasn't terribly difficult to discern the path by which Henry had led her from the Hatch. The path was marred by blades of grass that she realized suddenly that she alone must have bent and broken. Henry had left no trail at all. With a sigh, she gazed up toward the warm Island sun, toward the path to the Hatch, and allowed herself one fleeting glance back toward the beach and camp. She would have to make her own way. At last, she turned, at relative random, a quarter turn from the path to the Hatch. If she knew anything about the geography of this island (she didn't.), a bearing in this direction would carry her toward the interior, which is where she supposed the Others must live.

At least she was clever enough to remember that both Henry and Ethan had been, at one time, quite pale, and she supposed that Henry's sunburn in the Hatch must have had far more to do with being strung up in the sun all day by Rousseau than from living on the beach like the castaways.

Fingers of reluctance had at last begun to grasp at her mind. She was standing on the cusp of what she was beginning to understand was a life-changing decision. She hated making decisions with finality. But she found she could no longer be silently complicit with Jack's decisions, so, allowing that to propel her, she headed off into the jungle.

She might have been traveling in circles, for all she knew, every rock and every jungle clearing seemed the same after a while. The trees rustled gently, the birds cried overhead, and she found she was no longer quite certain what might happen to her. A tiny part of her mind realized that she might not have tried to understand the full story, so angry was she about Michael's betrayal. After all, had Sun, Jin, and Sayid not also set off that morning in the stranger's boat? Were they also looking for Henry, or had she mistaken their intent entirely? She had assumed that it wouldn't take long for the Others to sense her clumsy trudging in the underbrush but it had been hours, and she hadn't heard a single footstep. She began to quietly wish anyone would find her, even if it meant ending up at the business end of Rousseau's rifle.

But she was left alone, wandering the jungle, 'til nightfall.

* * *

Brilliant me, I had thought of just about everything except for the reality that I might have to spend a night alone in the wild jungle. What had we always said? Don't wander the jungle at night. What was I doing? Wandering the jungle, at night. I hadn't even brought a torch, so dusk found me scurrying for the shelter of the overgrown roots of some tree or other. I hunched in the failing light, allowing my fears to torture me long into the night, before exhaustion finally claimed me.

The next morning, I was singularly impressed to find myself still alive, and decidedly disappointed to find myself still alone. I wondered distantly if this was what Rousseau felt like every morning. I didn't want to find out. Shouldering my pack, I tried to discern what direction I had been traveling the night before. Failing that, I once again turned in an arbitrary direction, and set off once more into the jungle.

* * *

The morning sun was growing stronger, and Tristan was trying very hard to ignore the first hints of hunger when something caught her eye in the distance. An unmistakable glint in a thicket of bushes harnessed her curiosity, and she approached. It couldn't possibly be… But it was.

Her other shoe. Nestled upside down in the brush sat her other dance shoe, rhinestones speckled with mud, but still sparkling. She wrestled it from the branches, fingering its delicate straps bemusedly before she realized, too late, than the rustling of the brush had been masking the sound of approaching footsteps.

For a fraction of a second, she wavered between wild hope that the footsteps belonged to Henry and a resolute belief that she was, in fact, screwed. But as her eyes flitted upward, she was caught completely off guard by the man standing before her.

He was much darker than both Henry and Ethan, tall and tan, dark eyes taking her in more as a curiosity than a hostile thing. And he stood there, anachronistic in his pressed grey dress slacks and gleaming shoes.

"What are you doing out here?" He asked at last, in a tone that hinted he might have a good idea indeed of what she was doing alone in the jungle.

"Are you one of Them?" she asked, boldness taking even herself by surprise.

"One of them?" He repeated

"Are you an Other?" She spat this out with an aggression she must have picked up from the rest of her people, and attempted to arrange her face into something resembling reticence.

"I suppose you could say that, yes." He responded, expression growing wary.

"I want to go with you. Back to your people." Tristan said, straightening. "My name is Tristan Josephine Gardner, I am a survivor of Oceanic flight 815, and I wish to defect."

"Defect?" He asked, amused.

"That's right. I wish to join your people. I promise, I pose no threat."

The man ran a hand through his dark hair, chuckling.

"Is… is that yours?" He asked at last, indicating the shoe.

"Yeah. …You don't think I'm stupid enough to hit you with a shoe?" She asked, stuffing it hastily into her bag.

"No. If that's yours… I have something else that belongs to you."

"Oh god. You didn't find my panties, did you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing." She turned away, flushing crimson.

The man allowed silence to permeate the air for a moment, listening to the rustling of the trees.

"Alright, Tristan Josephine Gardner. I'll take you with me." He said, at last.

"You… You're not going to send me back to my own camp?" She asked, incredulously.

"Could you even find your own camp at this point?"

"…Probably not."

"It isn't safe for you to wander the jungle alone." He said. "You can come back with me, but you'll need to talk to Ben if you really want to stay."

"Fantastic. Let's find this Ben and have a chat."

"Not so fast. It's going to be a while. You'll have to wait until he gets back."

"So… You're just going to let me walk among your people, privy to all your secrets, and you don't even know if I'll be allowed to stay? Won't you get in trouble for that?"

"I don't answer to Ben." The man said. "And you will be watched. But you came of your own free will, there's no reason to start off on the wrong foot. Besides, you don't want Ben coming to collect you, trust me."

He began to lead her deeper into the jungle, following a twisting path only he seemed capable of seeing. Just as when she was travelling with Henry, questions kept bubbling up inside her until she couldn't stand her own ignorance any longer.

"You're Ben, aren't you?" She blurted at last.

The man's expression split in a wide smile.

"No. I'm not Ben. My name is Richard. Richard Alpert."

"Richard." She mused. "Pleasure."

They continued in further silence.

"Can you tell me, did Henry make it back to your camp?"

"Henry?" Richard asked.

"Henry Gale?"

"I don't know a Henry, Tristan. I'm sorry. Where did you meet him?"

"My, uh, people found him in the jungle. They thought he was one of yours… Guess not?"

"I don't know everyone on this Island." Richard mumbled dismissively. "Maybe you should ask Ben about him."

Tristan was too busy wrestling with this new puzzle piece to notice Richard's amused smirk.

"So… What's this Ben like, anyway?" She was digging for conversation at this point.

"Tristan, it really isn't safe to be announcing your presence to the entire jungle every few minutes." Richard replied, with an air of finality. She fell silent, consenting to allow him to conduct her still further down the invisible path. She began to concentrate instead on the rustling of the trees high above and Richard Alpert's dark silhouette, bobbing ahead of her. As they clambered over fallen branches and leaf litter, it eventually occurred to her that the only footfalls belonged to her, Richard's gleaming dress shoes treading silently over broken twigs.

Gradually, the terrain began to even out, rolling jungle and fallen rocks giving way to thinning, sparse trees and fields of sawgrass. The sun was crawling slowly toward the horizon and Richard paused momentarily to observe this, before waving her onward.

Across the prairie, Tristan could barely make out a series of strange, evenly-spaced structures, jutting out of the landscape.

"What is that?" She asked. "Is that some kind of border?"

"It's getting late. I'd like to get you settled by nightfall." Richard replied, not looking back.

"Are you afraid of the jungle at night too?"

"Of course not."

But he wasn't slowing down.

* * *

Finally, they approached the structures, rising out of the fields like absurdist trees.

"Ok, this is really starting to feel like The Martian Chronicles here. Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on and what these things are, or do I have to guess?"

As she made to move closer, however, Richard seized her by the arm, pulling her to a halt. He approached alone, pulling open a small panel on the base of one of the towers and punching in a series of numbers. Tristan felt the very air around her shiver with a kind of electricity, and then fall conspicuously silent.

It was only when Richard had conducted her through the towers and again punched in a long code that he finally stood and regarded her.

"Protection against undesirables." He explained, hardly an explanation at all in Tristan's estimation.

"Oh, I get it. Now it's safe to chat. Now that you can be sure no one can follow me." Tristan muttered dryly.

"You weren't being followed." Richard responded dismissively. "And even if you were, we wouldn't need a sonar fence to keep you out."

"A… sonar fence."

"That's right. Shall we keep going? It will be dark within the hour." Once again, he had already turned away from her and began walking, hardly even beckoning her on.

* * *

You would think that Richard Alpert and his unusual fashion choices would have solidified Michael's lies about the Others in my mind, but really, I hardly noticed at all. If I'd had any doubts, however, they were blasted away by the existence of the sonar fence. Suddenly, Michael's juvenile insistence that they wore loincloths and lived in tents seemed like a laughably indulgent fantasy at best. Had he been here? I wondered how much he had really known, how surely he had been leading Dr. Jack and Co. to slaughter.

I thought again about Henry Gale, so obviously one of Them in my mind. Richard had never even heard of him. Did he live in a place like this? And, if he did, how awful and savage must we have seemed by comparison? I was horrified at the thought that my own people were convinced our actions were the civilized ones.

* * *

They hadn't traveled 50 yards past the fences when Tristan's ears began to ring. Richard, several paces ahead of her, began to slow as the ringing grew more aggressive.

"Do you hear that?" He asked.

"What is it?" She caught up to him, and they both turned to gaze back toward the jungle.

The trees themselves seemed to begin to tremble, and Tristan clapped her hands over her ears as the ringing in the air became an unbearable whine.

"Get down." She heard Richard murmur, and the pair knelt together in the rustling grass.

The sun had been obliterated in a blinding wave of purple light, and Tristan found herself squeezing her eyes shut. What was happening?

* * *

I was reasonably certain that I was going to die there in that field, having never accomplished my mission, found Henry, or figured out who the hell this mysterious Ben character was. The sun had exploded and I was going to fry, with aloof Richard Alpert watching the whole thing like it was some sort of blasé intellectual curiosity. But as quickly as the sunny day had become a hellscape, the light faded, the ringing in my ears ceased, and I was left in a wash of peculiar silence as even the birds had stopped singing to ponder their mortality. No sooner had I opened my eyes in surprise when Richard seized me by the arm, heaving me back to my feet.

"We need to move. Quickly." He said, already releasing his grip and advancing across the rolling hills.

I was conducted in further infuriating silence through the ever-falling dusk across what was quickly becoming bafflingly manicured lawns. At this point, I was so far beyond knowing what questions to ask, it was pointless to try and wrestle answers from my guide. Clusters of tiny houses, like a dystopian summer camp, cropped up around me, electric lights twinkling merrily from windows and porch lamps. The largest house, still tiny and quaint to my eyes, stood at the center of the largest cluster.

"Ben?" I asked, nodding toward this house, conspicuously dark.

Richard simply nodded in silent reply. He guided me to a separate cluster, though within direct visual line of the large house, and stopped in front of one of the doors.

"I think you'll find everything you need, but if I can get you anything, you can find me just down the hill." He said at last, pointing away toward the direction we came.

"That's… that's it? We walk through the end of the universe, and you drop me off at the front door of Camp Kumbaya without so much as an explanation?"

"Good night, Tristan." He was already walking away.


	5. Chapter 5

The house was silent and unsettling in its coziness. It was immaculately clean and laid out as if it had been waiting for me. Its nondescript décor, gently swaying curtains, and neatly arranged bedding seemed so benign and inviting, and after a few months of waking up with sand in every nook and cranny, I found I almost didn't care about the gnawing feelings of doubt and strangeness this place stirred up, and put myself to bed almost immediately.

I awoke the following morning to an almost vicious pounding on the front door. I looked at the clock beside the bed, pausing to marvel at the miracle that I actually had not only a bed to wake up from, but a clock to look at. It was 7am, and I wasn't rightly certain I had woken this early any other day I had spent on the Island. I stumbled out of bed, groggily navigating my way to the door.

I pulled open the door and found myself face to face with a small, dark-haired woman.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" She asked, in a tone that suggested she wasn't at all sorry.

"It's fine." I mumbled, dismissively.

"My name is Harper. I'd like to ask you a few questions." She continued, brushing past me into the front room.

"Um. Come in. Make yourself at home." I deadpanned.

"You don't have any tea, do you?" She asked.

"You know, that's funny, I have no idea."

"Of course. That's right. How _could_ you know?" She breezed ahead of me, into the kitchen. I stared after her, incredulously, before following. By the time I got there, she had already produced a kettle and a box of the same white-label DHARMA tea that we would find in the Hatch supply drops.

She proceeded to appraise me silently, face arranged in an expression of determined calm and eyes blazing furiously the entire time the kettle was on the burner.

"Sugar?" She asked, sugar cube poised over a cup.

"No. Thanks."

She silently poured the tea, pushing a cup across the table to me. I had barely raised the cup to my lips when she spoke again.

"Were you one of the people that murdered my husband?"

"What?" I choked, sloshing tea into my saucer.

"I believe you heard me the first time."

"Were you Ethan's wife?" I asked at length. It hadn't occurred to me until this exact moment that Ethan might have had a wife, a family.

"No. But I guess that answers my question."

"…What, exactly, are you doing here in my kitchen?" I probed.

"I'm a psychiatrist." She responded, sipping her tea detachedly.

"Right. Of course. Look, I have no idea what happened to your husband. I don't even know who your husband is. But before you continue this interrogation, you should probably understand that the entire reason I'm here is because, whatever happened to him? It wasn't right. And I wasn't about to just sit and be complicit. Ok?"

"Did you sleep well?" She asked suddenly.

"I… yeah. It's a nice change, not finding sand in everything."

"Good. I wonder how Ethan would feel, knowing you're sleeping so soundly in his house?" She smiled, taking another sip.

"I get it. You blame me. Fair enough. I'm a face you can put on your feelings. But if you're looking for an apology… I didn't pull the trigger. My people… the other survivors… They're afraid. They're acting emotionally. They're not waiting for answers, they're just making their own. Respect the fact that I'm distancing myself from that behavior. Still, you're not entirely blameless yourself, are you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"How's Walt?"

It was her turn to drop her cup into its saucer with a clatter.

"Walt… is going home with his father. Where he belongs." She responded finally.

"At what cost?" I asked, emboldened. "You can blithely say that Michael's actions were his own choice, but we all know he was pushed." It was the first time this thought had articulated itself in my mind, but it tumbled from me before I could stop it.

"Why did you want to align yourself with us again?" She countered, composed once more.

Before I could come up with a sufficiently acerbic response, however, there was a knock at the front door. I rose, silently, to answer.

"Tristan. Did you sleep well?" Richard Alpert was standing on the porch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harper peering around the kitchen doorway, looking very much like a kicked puppy.

"What are you doing here?" Richard asked, brushing past me. Was everyone in the habit of just randomly invading everyone else's personal space?

"Harper, I think I'd like to speak with you later." He continued, dark eyes flashing. She peered at me for a moment, then straightened and passed between us, not looking at me again.

Once she had begun to cross the lawn, Richard moved to shut the door, then turned back to me.

"I'd tell you she's an anomaly…" He began.

"But she's not." I responded.

"What did she say to you?" He asked.

"Not much. She accused me of murdering her husband, and then tried her damndest to make me doubt my decision to come here."

"Most of us aren't that straightforward." He conceded. "But if you don't have a little doubt, you're living in a fantasy and you're going to end up very disappointed."

"Is Ben back yet?" I asked, trying desperately to change the subject.

"No. It's going to be awhile."

"Then why did you come to check on me?"

"…Tristan, did it ever occur to you that the reason I brought you here has as much to do with you deciding whether or not you want to be here as it does Ben deciding whether or not you get to stay?"

"Well, now it does, thanks." I muttered.

"I'm just saying, if you're going to blindly trust the way decisions are made here, you're going to be no happier than you were in your own camp."

"Richard Alpert, that sounds like dissent in the ranks." I cracked a smile. He didn't return it.

"If you want to be one of us, be one of us. But be an educated one."

A/N: Another shorty! Setting up the board, because things are about to get interesting.


	6. Chapter 6

I kept to myself for most of the next several days. Richard's words had hit me in a way I hadn't anticipated, and I began again to wonder if I had been too hasty in my decision to leave my own camp. I wondered if Dr. Jack and the other survivors had found out about Michael yet. I wondered, with a hint of bitterness, if anyone had even realized I was gone.

I didn't see Harper again, but I wasn't about to count that as a downside. She disappeared as quickly as she had come into my life.

The village I kept referring to as Camp Kumbaya was curiously empty and quiet. The only evidence of children seemed to be a stack of board games in the clubhouse and a swingset in the center of the cluster of houses across the lawn. I never saw more than two or three people over the course of a day, and they eyed me with such suspicion I didn't dare approach to ask questions.

Finally, four days after I had arrived in the Others' village, Richard Alpert came to visit me again.

"How are you?" He asked me.

"A little lonely." I admitted.

"I thought you preferred keeping to yourself?"

"Yeah, but I guess I'd like the option, at least."

"Well… you're in luck. There's someone I think you should meet."

I allowed my gaze to follow his indication, and I saw a slight girl with a mass of wild, dark hair crossing the lawn, slumping sullenly into the backyard swing.

"Her name is Alex. I think you'll get along."

"She's not going to read me the riot act?" I asked, hesitantly.

"No. She'll probably ask you a lot of questions though. Alex is Ben's daughter. She's got a… fascination with your people."

I tried not to visibly perk up at the words "Ben's daughter", but there was no fooling Richard. His expression remained neutral, but I saw his eyes glimmer with the barest hint of amusement. Four days of snooping and digging hadn't gotten me any closer to finding out anything about this mysterious Ben, nor had it turned up any evidence of the existence of Henry Gale, and I was just about tired of being left in the dark.

Richard shooed me abruptly from the doorway, and as I crossed the lawn, I tried desperately to think of anything other than my own terribly self-conscious awkwardness around strangers. I was failing miserably.

The girl on the swing was tiny, her abundance of dark hair tumbling down her shoulders. She reminded me distantly of someone, but I couldn't put my finger on whom. Probably someone from my old life. From a distance, she could have been 14 or full-grown, but as she looked up and realized I was there, her expression beamed and I could tell there was something still very childlike lingering about her.

"You're one of them, aren't you? I've seen you before." She smiled, feet shuffling in the dirt for a fraction of a moment before she stood.

"I guess you could say that." I responded. "My name is Tristan."

"Alex." She replied. Then, narrowing her eyes, "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't see eye to eye with some of the others in my camp. But… I met someone who made me think I might have better luck here…" I murmured, dismissively.

"They're treating you ok?" She was almost whispering.

"Mostly." I smiled, my morning with Harper floating to the front of my mind.

"You should come in." She responded, brightening once more.

As Alex led me around to the front door, I had a thousand questions swimming in my mind. Questions about Ben, about this place, about the crash survivors, about Henry. She recognized me immediately, did she know who Henry was?

I was conducted into the sunny front room, a space packed with bookshelves and furniture with the kind of shabbiness you might expect from your college professors' offices. Photos, all, it seemed, of Alex, crammed the walls.

"Can I get you anything?" She asked, breaking my attempt at surveying the room.

"Water is fine, thank you." I responded, sinking onto the sofa.

She disappeared into the kitchen and I resumed my slow marveling of the space I found myself in. Dusty, leather-bound books were crammed alongside innumerable jungly-looking tchotchkes and enough dated décor to remind me, in an odd way, of our hatch. I tried to focus on individual photographs, baby Alex, school photos, child Alex with a kitten. No photos of her with friends.

She had returned, and was pressing a glass of icy water into my hands. I took it, still grateful for the luxury of something like ice after the weeks of brackish and lukewarm water on the beach. It wasn't long before she began to inundate me with questions. I answered her as best I could, my own private mysteries still begging me to search for answers, but the best I could do was allow my eyes to keep straying to the photos crowding the walls. It put me at an odd sort of ease, this house. Whoever Ben was, someone who was this proud of his child couldn't possibly be the terrifying authoritarian I had built up in my imagination.

I continued to sit there, knees pressed together, Alex growing increasingly bubbly and animated with each question I answered, and I allowed my eyes to continue traveling over the photographs, now and again craning my neck for a view of the frames crowding the space behind my head. I had just taken a sip of water when my eyes fell on it.

I felt my entire insides go hot and cold at the same time. It was probably a miracle that I didn't spit water halfway across the living room, as I felt blood rushing toward my ears. I forgot to swallow for a long moment, and when I finally remembered, I gulped and choked out:

"Alex… That's your father?"

I watched her face darken slightly, as she regarded the photo in question. A lanky, pre-teen version of herself, giggling, being pushed on the backyard swing by the man I knew only as Henry Gale.

"Ben?" She asked, sullenly.

"That. That's Ben?" I was aware that I suddenly felt quite ill.

"Why?" She asked moodily, then, looking up, "Are you ok?"

"I'm sorry, I have to go." I stood abruptly, trying not to run as I headed out the door and back across the lawn toward my own cottage. Richard Alpert was waiting on the front porch as I returned.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I was conscious that I was practically screaming, but controlling my own volume was hardly a concern at this point. His eyes still danced with that infuriating amusement.

"You need to decide whether you want to stay based on your own reasons, not for or in spite of anyone that might be residing here."

"He told me to stay on the beach, Richard. What do you think he's going to do to me when he finds me here?"

"Well… You can find out for yourself in a few days, Tristan. They should be back sooner, rather than later."

"What if I decide to leave?" I asked defiantly.

"You're free to leave whenever you want, just as you were free to come here. But I'll warn you that Ben is very suspicious of your people, and it might not reflect so well, if you change your mind again."

"Yeah, no shit." I murmured, feeling still sicker. "You'd be suspicious too, if they locked you in a closet and beat you every day."

"It was his choice to gather information about the survivors." Richard said, almost trivially.

"I guess I've made my choice." I sighed. "Will you tell me when he gets back?"

"I'll tell you when he's ready to see you."

_A/N: OH MAN, We're SO CLOSE. I only made you wait, like, three chapters. And, like... six months. _


	7. Chapter 7

Tristan spent most of the next days hiding indoors, almost too afraid of the eventual return of Henry Gale. Try as she might to think of him as "Ben", as that was who he truly was, she couldn't shake the identity of Henry Gale from her mind. Would he be angry that she was here? That she had found their camp? Would he let her stay, as she had asked him in the woods that night, or would he throw her back out into the wilderness? Or would he take her quietly back home, as he had that night, sure that she wouldn't be able to follow? She still couldn't decide whether his actions were motivated by kindness, or cruelty, or pity? Speaking of, what would become of Richard? Had she misled him unintentionally by failing to tell him about her encounter with Henry upfront? He had said he didn't take orders from Ben… what did that mean? The whole situation was giving her a headache, and she was overwhelmingly anxious for his return, to hear her fate, one way or another.

Finally, desperately early in the morning, Tristan found herself peering out across the lawn, unable to sleep. There was a strange stillness in the retreating shadows as the sun weakly crested the horizon. At first, she thought her exhausted mind was playing tricks on her, but as island sunlight began blazing checkered patterns through the branches, she witnessed the veritable procession of Others, arriving in the camp, dispersing toward their respective cottages.

* * *

I could barely keep my eyes open moments before, but suddenly my mind was abuzz with activity. Had I seen any of these other people before? I didn't recognize anyone at first. I saw a group of Others carrying something… someone? Everything was white, and I saw them approaching Ben's house. It occurred to me suddenly that something might have happened out there in the Jungle, because god knows what's out there, and I was lucky to have made it here alive. What if he was dead? What would happen to me then?

And then, much to my surprise, a familiar face broke from the throng. Dr. Jack. He must have found out about Michael. He must have found out that the Others didn't kill Ana Lucia and Libby. That had to be it. Everything was fine, and we'd worked it all out, and all was forgiven. I'm sure I didn't believe that in the pit of my soul, but I wanted to badly enough.

Then, another thought. If Dr. Jack was here, something awful must have happened. Ethan had been the Others' doctor. Without him, they would have no choice but to find Jack. What if Ben really was dead?

Before logic could talk me off the ledge, I was pulling on shoes and out the door, trotting across the lawn, hopeful smile plastered on my face.

* * *

Jack Shephard was running a hand through his hair, nerves frayed, unsure whether to be relieved, overwhelmed, or suspicious that he was permitted out into the warm Island sunlight. He just needed a single moment when he wasn't thinking about Kate, or Juliet, or Ben, or home.

Tristan's emergence from the doorway of her bungalow blasted all of these thoughts clear out of his mind. What had happened in his absence? Did Kate and Sawyer even have a beach camp to return to? How did she get here?

* * *

"How is he?" I asked, tilting my head toward Ben's house, coming to a halt a few feet from Jack.

"How is he?" Jack spat the question back at me, incredulous. I stumbled backwards, surprised.

"How is he?" He was advancing on me now, eyes flashing. "Kate and Sawyer were locked in animal cages, who the hell even _knows_ where Hurley is, but your first question is how is _he_?"

He lunged at me, gripping my forearm tightly enough to force a whimper from my lips.

"Jack, I had no idea. You're hurting me. Stop."

"What are you even _doing_ here, Tris?" He asked, pulling me close enough to tower over me. "I see you're looking remarkably well."

"Jack, please."

"You want to know how he is?"

"Jack…"

"You want to know how _he_ is?" He was dragging me across the lawn, stumbling, tears burning in my eyes.

"Jack!"

He thrust me roughly ahead of him, grabbing me by both arms now and shoving me along in tense silence.

"Jack, what are you doing here?" We had burst through the door of Ben's house, Jack still pushing me along down the hallway.

"Get me the handcuffs, Juliet."

"What?" I asked.

"Jack?"

"The handcuffs, Juliet. Now."

"Jack…" I murmured. The woman he called Juliet had fled.

"_That's_ how he is." Jack had pinned me to the bedrail, and I found myself staring down at the man I had known only as Henry, paler and gaunt, drenched in sweat, and shivering, eyes squeezed shut in restless sleep.

"He's burning himself alive with fever."

Juliet had returned, stationing herself quietly in the doorway.

"What are you going to do?" She asked.

"She wants to know how he is. Since she's obviously more invested in whether he lives or dies than either you or I, she can watch him."

He stretched out one hand to Juliet, still pinning me against the bedrail.

"He needs a doctor, Jack."

"He needs to be watched. She's capable of that much."

Reluctantly, the woman placed a pair of handcuffs in his grasp. Almost instantaneously, he was ratcheting them painfully tightly to my wrists, wrapped around the bedrail.

* * *

It didn't take Tristan long to realize that Jack had positioned her in such a way that it was nearly impossible to either sit or stand comfortably. Whether this was intentional, or simply a side-effect of his haste and anger, she wasn't sure she wanted to know. She was forced to hunch over when standing, or kneel awkwardly, handcuffs biting into her wrists painfully every time she so much as shifted. In the silence, it became apparent that her lack of sleep the night before was going to come back to bite her now. Now and again, she would try to let her head loll against the metal tubing, but to no avail. Hours passed, Ben still muddling through fitful sleep, Tristan watching, still hoping to find a position that would alleviate the sting on her wrists and attain some level of comfort. The sun crossed the sky, blazing into the windows for a while, then setting, evening passed into night, and night very nearly passed into morning before he finally awoke, eyes taking a worryingly long time to focus on her face.

She had settled for practically dangling by her wrists, head bobbing and eyes glazing, unfixed, at a spot near her foot on the floor.

"It would be you, wouldn't it?" His voice was hoarse.

She looked up, uncomprehending.

"Patience was never one of my strong suits either." He continued. "Did Jack leave you here for me?"

Her eyes welled up with tears that she was far too exhausted to hold back. His gaze traveled to her wrists, raw, red, and bruised.

"No. Hey. Don't cry." He said, surprisingly consoling.

"I have a teenage daughter, I get enough crying. Please."

She would have been offended if she could have found the right combination of emotions.

"Come to bed." He continued.

"W…what?" she managed, head bobbing up momentarily, meeting his gaze.

"If Jack left you here to watch me, it's in my best interests for you to be well-rested and alert. I'm fairly certain he's not planning on checking in until you start screaming that I'm dead. Please come to bed."

She tried to arrange her face into something expressing that she was fine. She failed, miserably. Tears again began welling up in her eyes.

"Look. What am I going to do? I can't even wiggle my toes."

"I'm sorry." She mumbled. "You told me to stay on the beach, and I didn't listen."

He regarded her for a long moment, expression unreadable.

"I told you to stay on the beach because this is how they'll treat you, if you come with me."

"You won't send me back to my own camp?" She asked.

"Could you even find your own camp at this point?" He countered.

What was it with the Others and their (valid) assumptions that she couldn't navigate?

"…I'll hurt you." She murmured reluctantly, though she was already staggering to stand.

"Probably. Let's just get it over with."

_A/N: Payoff. _


	8. Chapter 8

As soon as the words had escaped his lips, he was already wondering what he had done. Maybe it was the more-than-satisfactory levels of painkillers Dr. Shepard had administered in the hopes of keeping him pliable and susceptible to suggestion (impossible). Or maybe it was just the nagging feeling in the pit of his gut (in fact, the only thing he could feel below his ribcage, at the moment) that told him that her loyalty might be useful to him.

As she scrambled awkwardly over the bedrail, he found himself wincing (Oh. _There_ was the rest of him…). It seemed to Ben that, as soon as she had made it over the railing, she was asleep, clinging to the metal tubing with an especially desperate fierceness. She was exhausted beyond measure, and he was restless, a hellish combination.

He found that he wasn't nearly as frustrated as he had expected to be by her direct disobedience of his request to patiently remain at the beach camp until he could figure out how to best use her. But perhaps that had more to do with his sudden awareness that, yes, he had been thinking persistently about a way to use her, and thus bring her to the Barracks, since they had met in the jungle. He was distantly aware that this thought should make him uncomfortable, but it hadn't, at least not yet. He was too busy being puzzled at how she even managed to find the Barracks on her own, given the fact that he had walked her in an obvious and giant circle when taking her back to her own camp, and she had never noticed.

But, where he might have been forced to muse her existence and potential usefulness to him, distracting him from more pressing issues, Dr. Shepard had done him a marvelous favor in chaining her to his bedside. Jack and his impulsive emotionality had cemented in Tristan's mind her suspicions that he wasn't acting in the best interests of all inhabitants of the Island.

He watched her shoulders, rising and falling gently. Her sleep, though virtually instantaneous, was still restless and pained. At least she was silent, and he was growing clear-headed enough to put his mind to more pressing issues. Much had happened in the last few days that he would need to take care of, not least of which was figuring out how to keep Juliet and Jack on the Island, now that he had stupidly promised to let them leave.

Almost as if summoned by his thoughts, he heard the door quietly creak open, and he shifted slightly to peer over Tristan's unruly auburn hair. Juliet had crept in.

"…Ben..?"

"Hello Juliet."

She softly jingled the set of keys in her hand.

"I thought I'd let her go home."

"Jealous?" he asked innocuously, though he knew the answer too well. He was, predictably, greeted by silence.

"Let her sleep, Juliet."

"Let me at least take these off." She murmured, already ratcheting off the handcuffs. Tristan woke with a start.

"It's ok. It's just me." Juliet carefully withdrew, and Tristan silently pulled her hands away, tucking them closer to her chest. After a moment's distrustful stare, she was once again claimed by sleep.

"Ben…" Juliet began.

"I have a plan, Juliet."

"I can see that." She retorted, without malice.

"Jack won't be happy, once he finds out it was you that let her go."

"Jack won't be happy until he's on the sub, Ben, so it doesn't really matter what I do." It was Juliet's turn to be greeted with protracted silence.

"Goodbye, Ben." She retreated once more, the door closing with a soft snap in her wake.

* * *

Now that she wasn't physically restrained, Tristan fell into a much deeper sleep. She was quite still for a long time, and Ben was lost in his own thoughts, having largely forgotten about her. But, of course, now that she wasn't physically restrained, she also wasn't resigned to clutching at the bedrail any longer, and finally, much to his chagrin, she sleepily snuggled closer to his warmth.

He recoiled slightly, suddenly and violently regretting his singular moment of compassion. She could have slept just as well in her own bed, and he might have gotten some work done. He was also distantly relieved, for the first time in his life, of Alex's determined indifference of him, given the near impossibility of talking himself out of the awkwardness that was rapidly developing.

It was then (of course it was) that the door opened once again.

"Hello Benjamin."

Dear god, it was Richard.

"Hello Richard." His tone was even, neutral, though he was certain Richard could hear nothing but failed nonchalance.

"I've come to rescue you, it seems." Had Tristan been awake, she would have discovered that the glint of condescending amusement in Richard's eye was not reserved only for her.

"I have a plan, Richard." Ben replied through gritted teeth.

"…Do you?"

"As it happens, yes."

"Would you rather I leave you to it then?" Ben sometimes had the feeling that Richard just couldn't help himself. At least he had enough respect to reserve those moments for times like this, with no witnesses.

"Richard."

The room was silent for a short moment, before Richard approached, stooping to retrieve Tristan. Before he could, however, Ben's eyes flitted upward, freezing him with his glance.

"What I would like to know, Richard, is how she got here." He intoned casually. Richard straightened.

"Well, Ben, I went out and I got her."

"Did I ask you to do that?"

"…No."

"Did Jacob?" Ben wasn't one for compulsive questions, but the twinge of dread that burrowed in his chest at the implication of this sudden thought was too much. Richard remained silent, but the look in his eyes was something Ben had not seen since he was a much younger man.

"Did he?"

More silence. Ben dropped his intent gaze from Richard's maddeningly neutral face and twisted to peer at Tristan, her face burrowed practically beneath his chin now.

"You should take her, Richard." He murmured.

"She's going to have a lot of questions for you when she wakes up, Ben."

"Well," He paused, still drinking in her sleeping face, "She's going to have to wait."


End file.
